by Jo Brand
Some people, depending on how much of a personality disorder they have, are very good at lying and others are useless. Sarah fell into the useless category and therefore had to have the radio on and be turned towards the window when she told Billy of her plans for the evening so he couldn’t hear her voice falter or see the reddened condition of her face.
‘OK,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the telly.
Sarah felt as if she was betraying him in some way and wanted to say, ‘Look, I’m going to self-defence classes to learn some ways of dealing with you if you get arsey, because you have got a bit of a temper, not that I expect you to hit me again, but it’s as well to be on the safe side because you wouldn’t want to accidentally kill me and go to prison for life, would you?’
Instead she said, ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’
Michael Randall, who ran the self-defence classes at the college in Vauxhall, was a genuinely decent bloke with two daughters in their early twenties, both of whom had been scared half to death by unlicensed minicab drivers at one time or another and had arrived home in a state of jellylike paralysis and despair at not having been able to respond, despite the general ‘bollock-kicking-I’m-up-for-anything-me’ nature of the female zeitgeist.
Despite being a nice guy, Michael knew how the minds of not-so-nice guys worked and therefore knew that most men who assault or flash at women, rely on the victims being so terrified that very little coercion is required. So all Michael wanted to do with his self-defence classes was teach these young women a few simple responses to get themselves out of trouble and allow them to get away. However, this would only have taken him twenty minutes, so he had to drag this twenty minutes out into a rather tedious seven-week course accompanied by more tedium in the form of aggression theory.
The huge disadvantage in life for Michael Randall was that he looked like a photofit for your local paedophile ringleader — sallow, wiry with thick glasses and greasy hair. Both his daughters were extraordinarily beautiful and if ever he and they were out together, people assumed he was stalking them.
The classes started at seven thirty and Martha, Flower and Sarah were, in the pub by seven for a quick drink before what they all assumed would be karate-chopping dummies . in the throat for two hours.
Flower, as usual, had been dropped off by Charlie who had temporarily acquired a van which smelled of dogs and cabbage, and she was dressed totally inappropriately for the weather, a cold, wet night perfect for a Jack the Ripper walking tour round Whitechapel. She wore a T-shirt, cardigan, jeans and flip-flops. Sarah looked like a minor turn-of-the-century Russian aristocrat on the outside and an American rapper underneath, and Martha who, because of her pregnancy was permanently boiling, wore a billowing diaphanous thing which was dark coloured, and some big, blokeish, boots.
The class was sparsely populated, a source of disquiet for Michael Randall who every day looked through his local paper with growing despair as a catalogue of rapes, assaults and murders floated in front of his eyes. He knew canvassing for business wouldn’t work: half the women would take one look at him and call the police.
Tonight eight women looked at him expectantly as he came into the gym which had been furnished with some of those rubber mats that are supposed to break your fall but don’t. Martha, Flower and Sarah were the only new faces at the class and they introduced themselves to the other five, two teenage friends, someone writing a PhD on violence against women, a posh middle-aged woman who had been threatened at a cashpoint and a young Asian woman in her twenties who worked in a newsagents and had seen her father and brothers suffer the most appalling verbal and physical abuse.
‘Right,’ said Michael Randall, fixing his paternal gaze onto the trio of new arrivals, ‘and what brings you here?’
Martha wanted to say, ‘We want to know how we can all give her boyfriend a good kicking,’ but instead said something very neutral, like, ‘Well, the streets are so dangerous these days, we want to defend ourselves and our sisters.
‘I realise that sounded totally wanky,’ she whispered to the others.
It had not escaped Michael Randall’s notice that Martha was heavily pregnant, Sarah looked like she had recently been battered and the third one appeared incapable of responding aggressively to anything.
He said kindly to Martha, ‘Obviously you’ll have to take it easy with any of the physical stuff, dear.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ said Martha. ‘I’ll make sure the Lump doesn’t get in the way.’
‘And you,’ he said, turning to Sarah and trying a very sympathetic voice, ‘have you been the victim of some appalling assault?’
‘I fell down the stairs,’ said Sarah flatly, knowing that the likelihood of that statement being believed in a women’s self-defence class was about as likely as Billy plugging in and using the Hoover.
‘Well, let’s get on,’ said Michael. ‘Last week at the first session I talked about my daughters’ bad experiences and we discussed some scenarios we’d like to deal with and this week perhaps we can come up with some possible situations and discuss how we might handle them.’
‘How about a group of teenage boys calling you horrible names?’ said Martha.
‘What do you mean?’ said Michael, looking puzzled.
‘Well, fucking slag … lard arse …‘ said Martha.
Michael interrupted, ‘No, I’m sorry, I meant what exactly is the self-defence issue in that scenario?’
Martha admitted that there wasn’t one, but she would still like some advice on how to physically assault the offenders and get away unscathed herself.
All the other women empathised with this but were not surprised when Michael pointed out that it is an offence to assault someone who has not touched you and a rather foolish one at that if that someone is a group of ten teenage boys.
Flower then intervened with a story about a demonstration she had been on with Charlie and described how a policeman had kicked her. She wondered whether there was anything legal she could have done to protect herself without getting into trouble. Once again Michael had to admit that assaulting the police wasn’t really part of his session either.
‘How about you?’ he said, turning towards Sarah.
‘Dunno, really,’ said Sarah, whose reluctance to attend had metamorphosed into a growing resentment towards this rather strange-looking little man.
‘All right,’ said Michael. ‘Let’s look at what happened to Diana and see if we can come up with some ideas as to how she could have tackled things better. Just remind us Diana, would you?’
‘Well,’ said the posh middle-aged woman, ‘I was at the cashpoint a couple of months ago at seven o’clock in the evening and I’d just got my money when I felt something sticking in my back and I heard a voice say — I’ll leave out the swearing if you don’t mind, “Give me your effing money”.’
‘And what happened then?’ said Martha, always fascinated by all things violent.
‘Well,’ said Diana, ‘I told him in no uncertain terms to bugger orf.’
‘And did that work?’ said Martha.
‘Not exactly. He stabbed me. Oh Christ, it was awful!’
‘Can you tell us about it?’ said Martha.
‘Well, my husband hadn’t paid our private health subscription and I ended up at the local general hospital on a ward with a load of smelly old ladies and one awful old harridan who just kept shouting “Kill me!” all the time. The place was a filthy pit. The nurses were lazy and foreign, most of them. Couldn’t understand what half of them were saying.’
Martha was beginning to be quite pleased Diana had been stabbed.
‘So,’ said Michael. ‘How could Diana have avoided injury?’
‘Just given the man her money?’ suggested Flower. ‘After all, he was probably desperate if he needed to do something like that.’
‘Desperate to inject crack cocaine more like,’ said the ever-charitable Diana.
Flower wanted to explain that you normally smoked
crack but thought better of it.
‘In a life-threatening situation like that,’ said Michael, ‘I would hand over the money.’
‘I’m disappointed in you,’ said Diana. ‘I’d have thought, given what your daughters went through, you might have more spunk.’
The teenagers giggled and Michael said, ‘In this day and age you have to be realistic if someone has a knife, particularly if it’s in your back.’
‘I’m wasting my bloody time then,’ said Diana and she was, because as she got up, put her coat on and flounced out, not one single person tried to persuade her to stay.
The session continued more amicably with Michael suggesting a few ways in which they could improve their chances of staying safe, one of which was simply to be prepared for trouble at all times.
Martha’s favourite self-defence move culled from Michael Randall’s repertoire that evening was a punch in the throat, much more effective apparently than a kick in the testicles. She resolved to try it on the next groper.
The group of women had a good laugh that night and left very cheerful and optimistic about a future in which they talked, punched and twisted their way out of danger. Even Sarah, who had talked herself into a terrible mood, outside the college visualised a scene in which her tough-ness conquered Billy’s violence and strengthened their love. For Sarah, though, tonight was going to be dirty and depressing. Billy had just happened to drive past and had seen her and her friends come out of the college gates.
Charlie, who had come to pick Flower up, was also there. Billy could see them all having a laugh and, like he so often did, wondered whether it was at his expense. He stopped the car, parked it badly, and walked back towards the group. In the twilight he didn’t catch Sarah freezing up with fear. They all looked at him like an outcast.
‘Hello, thought you were going down the pub,’ he said, eyes narrowing at Sarah.
The four were struck dumb. No one knew who should lie first. Martha thought honesty was the best policy.
‘We decided on the spur of the moment to go to this new self-defence class. You know, ‘cause it’s getting bad round here, and well …‘ she tailed off.
Billy’s eyes narrowed further and he grabbed Sarah’s arm rather roughly and pulled her towards him. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re going home.’
‘Hey,’ said Sarah, trying to struggle out of his grip. Flower was more surprised than anyone to find that her body seemed to be in charge of her brain and before she could stop it, she had punched Billy in the throat. Well, that was the intention. What actually happened was that she rather soggily aimed a not very well screwed-up fist in the general direction of his throat and ended up scratching the side of his face with a ring she’d bought at an eclipse some years ago. So, Flower thought she’d have another bash. Billy thought otherwise, put his hand up to stop her and grabbed her wrist which, as she twisted away from him, gave way with a crack. Flower fell to the ground, sobbing hysterically, ‘He’s broken it, he’s broken it!’ Flower was not one of life’s troupers.
Charlie leaped into action in his rather over-relaxed fashion. ‘Hey man,’ he said to Billy, ‘what are you doing?’
Billy thought, Christ, I can’t believe this is happening … they’ve all got me down as a woman-beater and now I’ve broken the hippie’s wrist. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘And I’m sure Hitler didn’t mean to kill millions of Jews,’ said Charlie.
‘Well, he did actually,’ said Martha, irritating Charlie like she always did.
‘Just call a fucking ambulance,’ shouted Flower, the adrenaline enabling her to add sweating to her repertoire of newly acquired skills.
The nicotine-stained gang outside the hospital vaguely recognised some combination of Martha, Sarah and Billy, but they had not chanced upon the grungy flung-togetherness that was Flower yet. Fat Wheezing Bloke thought her nose deserved some of his urban poetry and then thought better of it as he spotted the face of Billy grimacing just behind Flower and almost felt the headbutt he would receive if he said anything.
The group spilled into Accident and Emergency expecting, as one always does, to be seen immediately, despite the illuminated digital sign which said it would be more like five hours.
Charlie had had half an hour to work himself up into a righteous mood of indignation about the evening’s events and while Billy was humiliating himself, but only in his own eyes, getting the teas, Charlie took out his frustration on a wall in the corridor and bent his finger back in the process, breaking it.
Martha registered him at the desk where the clerk didn’t bat an eyelid. In fact, had a troop of GIs come through the roof and napalmed the maroon crimplene jacket resting on the back of her chair, she would still have retained that fish-eyed expression that denoted compassion or interest had died long before her first anniversary in the place.
Billy, meanwhile, was rehearsing a few speeches in his head to counter the increasing tendency of Sarah’s friends to classify him as existing down the worm end of the evolutionary scale. After a brief period of resolving to sort himself out, he decided he’d probably been condemned already and what was the point of trying to impress these two silly women and the hippy’s boyfriend. Once again the nice person trying to get out of Billy got on the first rung of the ladder and then couldn’t be arsed to climb any further.
Flower had broken her wrist and as she had fallen too, and knocked her head on the pavement, losing consciousness for a few seconds, the junior doctor who’d had a couple of patients die on him in the last hour was very anxious and instructed the charge nurse to find a bed in which Flower could be observed overnight. As per usual, beds were short but one was found and Flower was wheeled into the same ward on which Sarah had spent such a joyous night with the posse of elderly sheriff’s deputies, who could not quite believe it when they saw Billy shuffling along behind yet another injured woman.
‘Christ, Ivy,’ said one to the woman next door to her, ‘he’s only gone and done another and look’ (pointing at Martha), ‘do you think he got that one up the duff an’ all?’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised, Glad,’ said Ivy. ‘Some blokes these days have hundreds of women.’
They tried to muster up some dirty looks while Flower puzzled over this and thought it must be disapproval at the way she was dressed.
Charlie was still in X-ray at this point which supported the misapprehension of the ladies that Billy was the boyfriend of Flower too. Billy felt the rheumy eyes boring into his back and made his escape as quickly as he could when he realised where they were. Sarah had already realised and waited outside the ward, not mentioning this to Billy whom she wanted punished even if it was only by the disapproval of some grey-haired old ladies.
This then left Martha by Flower’s bedside holding the hand attached to the unbroken wrist.
‘He’s a fucking menace,’ she said as Billy left the ward. ‘We’ve got to do something.’
‘It was an accident,’ said Flower, who had been thoroughly shaken up by the whole thing. Her peace-loving parents had never smacked her or even seemed in the slightest bit angry, ever, so any physical or verbal aggression really disturbed her, although London was teaching her very fast that everyone is a little pressure cooker waiting to spew all manner of nastiness over their fellow citizens.
Charlie stumbled into view grinning and holding up his finger which had what looked like a comedy dressing on it, inexpertly applied by an unsupervised student nurse who, having missed that module in the School of Nursing, appeared to be relying instead on cartoon characters she had seen as a child. If Charlie had had a toothache she would have tied a bandage round his head with a big bow on top.
Charlie’s trousers were soaked. He had used a toilet which had needed repairing for months and had finally gone to the great urinal in the sky. It had attacked him by squirting urine back at him in a watery pattern on his less than pristine jeans. Still, at least it’s my own, thought Charlie, who wasn’t a contender
for obsessional cleanliness but drew the line at being covered in piss.
Martha decided she’d better leave once Charlie had arrived as she was sure there was plenty for him and Flower to talk about.
‘Look,’ she said to Flower, ‘we need to discuss various things. Can you come round mine tomorrow?’
‘All right,’ said Flower. ‘I’ll take the day off work, I expect, so I’ll come about two, OK?’
‘Fine,’ said Martha. ‘See you.’
Martha knew the smokers would be lying in wait, so she tried to sneak out the back way, but finding all other exits barred because of the late hour, she prepared a riposte.
Sure enough as she tried to sneak past, someone cleared their throat and mumbled something. Martha turned and with as much venom as she could muster managed to spit out, ‘At least my lungs don’t look like a phlegmy Christmas pudding, arsehole,’ leaving a rather confused visitor who had just wondered how far the car park was.
As a smoker, Martha’s lungs probably looked like that too. Martha, however, was blessed with the optimism of most smokers that they have a built-in cancer escape clause in their chest and that the lung lottery will be kind to them only.
The grey posse had by now decided that Charlie was Flower’s brother and he had been injured in his valiant attempt to prevent his sister being beaten by the multiple-partnered Billy, who was a gangster and former jailbird. This was more exciting than the truth, but not much.
Flower had rejected the animal sandwich offered to her by a student nurse and resisted the further offer of another animal in a bun with some chips from a carnivorous porter who was on his way to get one from the outlet recently opened in the hospital providing good bowel-paralysing fare and extremely rare glimpses of anything that could be described as a vegetable.
Charlie had said he’d go home and get her something sproutish, but she declined and prepared to give her speech about Charlie’s problem of controlling his temper.
Charlie knew what was coming and opened with, ‘Well, at least I hit inanimate objects and not women.’